It’s time for all those end-of-the-year blog posts! I admit, I kind of like this tradition. It’s a nice way to look back on things from a larger perspective. And I have a brand new DreamWorld image featuring Travis Weinand for those who want to just scroll to the bottom 🙂

2015 was a… challenging year, to say the least. And it turns out I’m starting it with a fresh, new cold and fever. It has been the worst year I’ve had, ME-wise, so far. It didn’t help that the year began with a crunched-for-time move of houses which literally took me several months to recover from. Medication changes gave me months of terrible headaches and migraines, which also meant that this year was the least photographically productive year I’ve had yet also. Between feeling terrible physically and not having nearly as much access to my art therapy as I wanted, it was a very depressing, frustrating and emotionally trying year as well. All said, I’m happy to leave 2015 behind me and have set my intentions to have a much more fulfilling 2016.

There was some drama in the larger world of ME as well. The US officially changed its name from the very belittling “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” to the vague and incredibly widely-defined “Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease.” Most patients and advocates were very unhappy about this and there was a big backlash, which the powers-that-be mostly ignored, as is their usual method of dealing with us. I’m still calling it ME, which is what most of us wanted it to be changed to.

One of the first models I ever worked with, Dedeker Winston, who has continued modeling for me over the five years we’ve known each other, despite me forcing her to wake up early, pose laying in cold, slimy, creeks, regularly get naked in forests and once helping me discover what stinging nettles look like when I accidentally had her pose nude in a patch of them, left for an extended time abroad. She is having a wonderful, life-expanding time and I’m able to keep in touch and follow her journey online and through social media and texts. I was sad to see her leave, but glad that we’d gotten in as much shooting as we did before she left, such as the Pink Mother for DreamWorld. Speaking unselfishly though, I’m really happy she had this chance to do so much traveling and is having such an incredible time! But I won’t be sad when I have the chance to photograph her again 🙂

My dear friend Danica gave me a priceless chance to work with an incredible, stunning, cream-colored Gypsy Vanner stallion named Booger. As soon as I discovered she was horse-sitting him, I began planning a shoot with Katie Johnson and him together, utilizing him in every way I could think of. I have a LOT of his shots still on my hard drive waiting to be edited, but I did at least complete one image from that magical shoot!

I was able to attend another screening of The Last Unicorn, which was absolutely delightful! I dressed up as Amalthea and made a taco purse (get your own here!), which I think was the secret behind me winning the nightly costume contest. I was also able to introduce my dear friends and ex-neighbors Donna and John to the movie for the first time (though I’d already made them fans of Peter’s writing) and they were appropriately impressed.

Speaking of illness, one of my favorite photographers, Ashley Lebedev, let us all know that she has struggled with a chronic illness for a long time. It was beautiful to see people’s support and desire to help her gather funds for treatment. I wish her a much better, healthier 2016 also!

Since 2015 was so heavy with ME, migraines, frequent colds, injuries, deep ruts of depression and stress in ways I have seldom experienced it, an incredibly huge percentage of my physical energy was devoted to simply existing and not giving up. It really underscored how precious my time and energy is and how I need to devote it to things that are worthwhile. No, not just worthwhile, but things which I cannot live life without. The things are dearest and most deeply important to me.

This has given me a lot to think about as I ponder how I’ll change my management of time and energy in 2016. I will try and devote myself to not just ideas I like, but the ideas which I think are the best. The most important. I simply don’t have time to pursue anything less. This is helping to bring my artistic goals into much sharper focus. The dross will be burned away; the leftover gold burnished until it gleams.

I’m also making an effort to set aside more time for self-care activities, like short walks with Calantha or yoga when my body allows, meditation and reading for pleasure. Few things enrich my life (both my actual and imaginary worlds) as much as reading does and I need to make sure I don’t let that slip away from me by being “too busy” for it.

But of course the most important things are the relationships I have with friends and loved ones. Those will always be tended to, nurtured and cultivated as best as I can manage! I am blessed to have many, wonderful friends in my life, online and off, who get me, support me and my art and are incredibly gracious about my health problem. That’s something I should never forget to be grateful for or take for granted.

When I first met model and friend Travis Weinand, I was struck by how truly ethereal he looks. Not simply in pictures or when in costume, he always looks like he stepped out of a comic book, collection of mythology or possibly Middle Earth. With a quick stop-off for a dose of Viking and tattoos. Anyway, I immediately wanted him to have wings. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew he’d get them before we were done working together.

So at our next shoot, I asked him to sit in front of a dark backdrop and pose angelically. He made looking strong, gentle, loving and bad-ass all at the same time look effortless. Editing did take a while since I painted the wings myself and had to figure out exactly how I wanted these “wings made out of light” to look, but it was very worth the effort!

This character lives in DreamWorld, as you would probably guess, a centurion of sorts to DreamWorld’s Queen (whom you have not met yet, but hopefully you will soon). He leads the Queen’s army, the Glorious Guard, but he’s more than just a devoted servant. Part bodyguard, part lieutenant, part enforcer, part adviser, he is a dazzling embodiment of good.

The title of this image comes from one of my favorite poems of George Gordon Lord Byron, All For Love. In it, Byron discusses love being the greatest glory one can receive, far greater than wreaths, trophies or other symbols of glory:

O Fame! if I e’er took delight in thy praises, ‘Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discoverShe thought that I was not unworthy to love her.There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;When it sparkled o’er aught that was bright in my story,I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

That last line kept repeating and repeating through my head as I edited… thinking about the love he has for his Queen, those he protects and his glorious vestige, so I finally gave in and just used it as the title.

I have some health updates for you guys which I will tell you about soon (nothing too exciting, don’t worry) but I’ve been too busy doing the updated things that I’ve hardly had any time to write or edit or do anything creative. I’m switching medications and weaning up to a therapeutic dose of the new one right now; I’m not quite midway through the transactions. I feel pretty horrible; intense migraines all day and night, nausea, exhaustion (beyond normal levels even), pain flairs and insomnia. But I don’t feel like I should be complaining about any of that after hearing what Ashley Lebedev, aka Bottle Bell Photography, has been going through.

I knew that Ashley had some health problems, but that was about all I knew. We both live inside the fine-art-conceptual-magical-ethereal-fantasy-fae-creating-characters-building-our-own-props-and-costumes-and-sometimes-self-portrait-taking-photographers-world, which as you can imagine, doesn’t have a HUGE number of members. We’ve known each other online for several years and I’ve come to know Ashley as being endlessly creative, genuinely positive, extremely talented and an all-around lovely person.

It turns out that Ashley is far, far sicker than I realized. Her doctors don’t even know exactly what the problem is, only that she is dangerously sick and will die without intervention. But intervention is hard to get if you don’t know what you’re fighting. Ashley recently launched a GoFundMe to help finance her journey toward health, which will likely include some very expensive stays at medical facilities, special tests and treatments, all not covered by insurance.

Ashley needs us. And the world needs Ashley. It would be a much darker, sadder place without her bright, beautiful soul. So please, donate to her cause if you can. And whether you can or can’t help with money, you can also help just by spreading the word about her fight!

I know that she will also welcome any prayers, Reiki, good energy, lit candles, etc, sent her way. I know that she can get through this, but she will need our help. Let’s overwhelm her with our love and support! Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!!